Evidently the design and the colouring were what struck him as noticeable. The motto itself was a commonplace of Christian living, the expression of a basal fact, quite naturally hung where it would catch the eye of chance visitors.
In the drawing-room Mrs. Beecher and her two daughters, still in their hats and gloves, stood round a turf fire. They made a place at once for Hyacinth, and one of the girls drew forward a rickety basket-work chair, covered with faded cretonne. He was formally introduced to them. Miss Beecher and Miss Elsie Beecher had both, the latter very recently, reached the dignity of young womanhood, and wore long dresses. The three boys, who were younger, were made known afterwards.
When they went into the dining-room the Canon selected the soundest of a miscellaneous collection of chairs for Hyacinth, and seated him beside Mrs. Beecher. Then the elder girl--Miss Beecher’s name, he learnt, was Marion--entered in a long apron carrying a boiled leg of mutton followed by her sister with dishes of potatoes and mashed parsnips.
‘You see,’ said Mrs. Beecher, and there was no note of apology in her voice as she made the explanation, ‘my girls are accustomed to do a good deal of the house-work. We have only one servant, and she is not very presentable when she has just cooked the dinner.’
Hyacinth glanced at Marion Beecher, who smiled at him with frank friendliness, as she took her seat beside her father. He saw suddenly that the girl was beautiful. He had not noticed this in church. There he had no opportunity of observing the subtle grace with which she moved, and the half-light left unrevealed the lustrous purity of her complexion, the radiant red and white which only the warm damp of the western seaboard can give or preserve. Her eyes he had seen even in the church, but now first he realized what unfathomable gentleness and what a wonder of frank innocence were in them. The Canon looked round the table at his children, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eye when he turned to Hyacinth and quoted:
‘“Your sons shall grow up as young plants, and your daughters shall be as the polished corners of the temple.”’
Perhaps nine-tenths of civilized mankind would regard five children as five misfortunes under any circumstances, as quite overwhelming when they have been showered on a man with a very small income, who is obliged to live in a remote corner of Ireland. Apparently the Canon did not look upon himself as an afflicted man at all. There was an unmistakable sincerity about the way in which he completed his quotation: